Brands growing on Reddit

Futurism started on Reddit – now it’s one of their main acquisition channels

Developing their own community is paying dividends.

Brand

Futurism

Reddit Properties

r/Futurism

u/FuturismDotCom

Overview

Digital publisher Futurism apparently started life on Reddit as an infographic grown into a larger project.

They're now driving more than 220k new organic readers a month from Reddit (for free).

Here's how they do it, using nothing more than their brand profile and a dedicated Reddit community of 43k subscribers.

Activity Output

  • 220k monthly visitors
  • Brand uplift
  • 43k Reddit community

Diversifying away from Google

Like most digital publishers in 2025, Google’s algorithm hasn’t been kind to Futurism.

This is a HUGE problem when search is the predominant means for content discovery on the open web.

But in these challenging times, for publishers to survive they have to be able to diversify their traffic sources.

And given that many users nowadays are actively choosing the platforms online that most closely align with their belief system, that’s certainly a sensible play.

Futurism's audience love spending time on Reddit

It’s never been as important to understand your audience and where they are choosing to spend their time online.

For Futurism, their audience is increasingly spending their time on Reddit. And they’re making it easy for that audience to discover their content.

How Futurism drives at least 220k new readers every month with Reddit

Futurism clearly understands Reddit. But more importantly, they understand Redditors.

Among the strategies they’re using to win new readers:

  • Cultivating their own dedicated community on r/Futurism. With 43k subscribers they have built a community in the top 3% by followers.
  • Optimising their brand profile u/FuturismDotCom to drive direct visits and referrals to their website, Discord and other social properties.
  • Posting their articles to relevant sub-reddits including r/economy, r/ufo, r/NoShitSherlock and of course, to their own community in r/Futurism.
  • Commenting from their profile to actively engage with their audience under their brand profile u/FuturismDotCom.

SimilarWeb lists Reddit in their top two social referrers; estimated to drive at least 220k new readers every month.

futurism social media channels

And I’d wager that a large proportion of their Direct traffic is a result of their brand building efforts on Reddit too.

Start following the Futurism framework

Clearly this is a model that works for Futurism. When you read statements like ‘just build a brand’ online, this is exactly the type of activity you can and should be doing.

How can you use Futurism’s framework? Check out our resources page for simple step-by-step guides, or learn from the best using our portfolio of Reddit use cases.